Keith Baxter wrote: ↑Sat Dec 04, 2021 1:28 am
Looks like we are in for a treat this weekend.
Absolutely. I was even impressed with hamilton yesterday and that is saying something
. When he just concentrates on driving and stops playing 'Billy big bollocks' and trying to falsely play the part of a latter day Martin Luther King then he gets far more respect. Stick to being a driver !
.. Seb gave a master class of getting a point across in a totally subtle and gentlemanly way. Anyway, I digress. He is driving at his peak and keeping his gob shut so credit to him.
Max did a stunning run on the hard compound straight out of the gate. Brand new track and surface. He absolutely thrashed it like a boss with no hesitation. That takes utter commitment and confidence. The RB looks better balanced on the medium and hards but was still impressive on the softs. P3 long run simulations and quali will tell us a lot as P2 was curtailed with Mr 'sorry guys' and his RUD (Rapid unscheduled disassembly) of the Ferrari.
First casualty was, as said above, Charles 'sorry guys' Le Clerc. I am sure there will be many more and lots of safety cars. (probably no VSCs)
I actually think the track is bordering on dangerous Keith. Seriously. It is not so much the issue with 'coming off' - meaning crashing / hitting the barriers, it is more about being bounced back onto the track into on coming traffic like Anthoine Hubert's horrendous F2 incident at Spa in 2019 which unfortunately resulted in his death. It wasn't the first crash that killed him, it was being t-boned by JM Correa after bouncing back onto the race / run off area and that was at 135MPH, not 200MPH ! - and there are virtually NO run off areas here.
I am not convinced that very high speed barriered circuits are actually a good idea, but, we will see. There are some seriously blind very high speed corners / bends here. When Hamilton came around one of the high speed corners in P2 to find 3 slow cars in a line and another ahead on the racing line it was only by skill that he didn't become a statistic. It will be frightening in Quali me thinks. Even the English commentators and F1 world champion Damon Hill were shocked when seeing that. You could hear the shock and slight panic in his voice and Damon is one cool dude.
Several of the drivers from Hubert's race are now racing here in F1 - Nicholas Latifi, Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher for example. I am sure there will be some nightmares resurfacing for those guys.
I think things got a bit lax up until Jules Bianchi's fatal crash at Suzuka four years before Hubert. That was the first fatality in F1 since Senna in 1994 and led to the incredible changes in safety car rules. Jules ran into a 14,000 Kg forklift truck clearing a car from a corner. The impact actually lifted that truck into the air. This also led to the Halo being introduced.
None of these though can stop a 'bounce back onto the track' accident at crazy high speeds. Fingers crossed all is ok.
Street circuits are fantastic however I don't think extremely high speed street circuits are 'safe' for the reasons above.
Let's hope it's a cracking race weekend. I sure hope so. I think this will be a race of safety cars and tyres. Many new fans to F1 (not like us old buggers) probably don't actually realise just HOW dangerous and unforgiving this sport is. I hope they don't get a lesson on the realities this weekend.
Joe
As a footnote for fairly new fans of F1 - the forces involved in an F1 crash are simply unbelievable. The structure can usually withstand more than the driver. The following video is of Jules Bianchi's fatal crash at Suzuka in 2015. Content WARNING - This incident resulted in fatal injuries to Jules. You can see the first car to come off the track and the race was not stopped as the safety car rules as they exist today were not in place!. Whilst clearing the first car they allowed the race to carry on and unfortunately Jules also came off at the same corner and hit the extremely large forklift unit lifting it from the ground and moving it a considerable distance as Jule's car went underneath the forklift !. That forklift weighs around 14 THOUSAND Kilograms !!!!!. It is actually possible that even with the mind blowing horrendous forces such as this, that Jules 'may' have survived with the Halo. The later accident in 2019 in F2 with Anthoine Hubert at Spa was absolutely not survivable due to where the car was hit. It all looks so 'forgiving' on TV sometimes, but rest assured it is far from that. It is a very very dangerous sport and these guys are the very best in the world at what they do. The video also shows some incidents prior to the 2015 fatal crash that involved F1 cars and other non race vehicles due to not properly stopping or slowing the racing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Utd_BAO ... sarabalost
. Especially the one relating to where he will soon be racing.. oops.
